“Remember why we’re not supposed to look in the windows?”
“Try being more patronizing, why don’t you?”
“No jokes. Not with this.”
Ty frowned. “Because it doesn’t follow typical rules. If it’s reflected in our eyes, it’s in our eyes?”
“And if its image is captured in your phone?” I asked.
He looked down at his phone, his forehead creased as he frowned.
“Oh,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Chances are low,” Rose said. “If it was that easy, and if I’m right about there being bindings hidden among the graffiti, it would probably have escaped already.”
“Probably,” I said. “But low chances or not…”
“Yeah,” Ty said. “It’s a bad idea. Unless I can get a shot that doesn’t include the windows?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That.”
He moved the phone by milimeters at a time, until he had a shot. I heard the artificial camera sounds as he took the pictures.
“We should meet up with Maggie, then start working on the plan to free up your ability to use magic,” Rose said. “If we can’t come up with a plan A, we’re going to have to go with her plan B.”
“You know a plan sucks when it’s the plan B before you even have a plan A,” Alexis said.
“Give me a better one,” I said. “Please.”
She shrugged.
“Yeah,” I said.
Ty finished taking the photos and put his phone away.
“Speaking of the one member of our group who seemed most uncomfortable with the idea of stopping by the factory…” I said, as we collectively turned to head in the direction of the car. I paused long enough to make sure everyone was listening, “…Anyone else have concerns?”
“Don’t know her,” Alexis said. “I don’t get a good vibe.”
“You get ‘vibes’?” I asked.
“Not really. Not usually. But I got one with you, I think, and I got one with her. Good vibe with you, but she gives me a bad one.”
I nodded.
“Why?” Rose asked.
“Something’s legitimately Other about her,” I said. “Duncan hurt her, and I saw something beneath the surface. When I looked at her with the Sight, she looked like she had more power than she’s been displaying. Little things haven’t been adding up. My first thought was possession.”
“That would explain a lot,” Rose said. “She hasn’t been sleeping.”
“Insomnia?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Rose said. “I see her sometimes and she’s lying there, just breathing… but then she gets restless and she starts moving around. Like she’s trying to pretend to sleep, but she can’t bring herself to do it for eight hours straight.”
“Okay,” I said. “This is the sort of thing where it’s really useful to compare notes. We’ve read about cases where someone lets something in and it takes over. Or a familiar overwhelms the master.”
“You still trusted her with the binding circle.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because nothing’s suggested she’s not on our side,” I said, “I like to give people the benefit of a doubt until they give me reason to do otherwise.”
“Noble,” Rose said. “Stupid as fuck, but noble.”
“Not arguing that,” I said. I’m the fool, after all.
“What are we supposed to do, then?” Tiff asked.
“Just keep an eye out. Note anything unusual, report it when she’s not nearby. For now, we’re going to meet with some dangerous people, enact our plan B, and maybe if there’s any spare time to let our minds idle, we need to think about a way to produce as much fire as is humanly or inhumanly possible.”
“Oh,” Evan said, hopping around on my shoulder. “Blake, blake! I know, I know!”
■
Our first stop put us outside a little building on the outskirts of Toronto. Between picking up Maggie and then making the trip, we had a long enough drive that we had to stop for lunch on the way.
The drive was somewhat uncomfortable with Maggie in the passenger seat, the other three crammed in the back, but there wasn’t another configuration that would have worked. The roads had yet to be cleared, so I couldn’t ride my bike. I wasn’t one for being crammed anyplace, and I didn’t want to make the others sit with Maggie when we’d just been voicing our concerns over her.
Then, to top it off, she got in a long discussion with Evan about how one could theoretically pull off the ‘fire bird’ thing. Certain kinds of goblin and elemental, and how shamans could manipulate spirits into war paint to wear them, and other inane ideas that would be floating through Evan’s head for days to come.
The building was only one floor, squat, with a sloped roof. The snow heaped over it had greater dimensions than the building did.
I knocked.
The Astrologer answered.
“You don’t have any errant spirits on your person? Nothing electrical or technical?” she looked at Maggie, “No gremlins?”
“No,” I said.
“No,” Maggie said.
“Good. Come in. Tea?” she asked. “I’m drinking a lot of tea right now. I ran out of milk a good few hours ago, so you’d have to choose between green and black.”
“Sure,” I said. “Wouldn’t complain. Green.”
“Going to be a bit of a squeeze, but you guys should come in.”
The others gave their orders as I made my way inside.
It kind of baffled, boggled the mind even, that we were in the great white north, a place with a freakishly low population density of about four people per square kilometer, and yet I kept finding myself in places without enough room.
I took a fraction too long to decide where I could sit where I’d have enough room, prompting a, “Blake?” from Alexis behind me.
We sat, in chairs or on the edges of desks, where we could find the room. The room wasn’t much larger than my parents’ one-car garage had been when I’d been growing up, and it was chock full of computer towers, shelves and boxes. Where those things alone didn’t take up enough space, the place was further littered with errant books and stacks piles of paper, a lot of it from some old fashioned printer where the paper connected as a series of sheets, end to end in one long feed with holes at the side so the machine could manipulate it better. The printouts themselves were faded, featuring reams of calculations, and many piles had words written on the sides in marker.
Diana looked so mellow and laid back, compared to the put-together way she’d looked when I’d first seen her. Skirt over tights, slippers, and a loose woolen sweatshirt, her hair tied back in a ponytail. She flicked on her kettle, which rested on a shelf.